Let s Have an Old Fashioned Victorian Christmas Dinner

Tonight I'm stepping back into a Victorian-inspired Christmas, cooking a meal made almost entirely from dishes that would have been familiar on a 19th century holiday table. Simple food, honest ingredients, candlelight, and a reminder that Christmas didn't always mean excess, it meant warmth, tradition, and gathering. We're starting with the heart of a Victorian Christmas dinner, traditional Christmas pudding, often called figgy pudding. Despite the name, it didn't always contain figs. It was a dense, spiced pudding made with dried fruits, suet, breadcrumbs, and warm spices, designed to be nourishing, long-keeping, and deeply comforting. We are all familiar with the figgy pudding, the Christmas pudding. We have heard about it in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and we've sung about it in the song We Wish You a Merry Christmas when we say, now bring us a figgy pudding, right? So I was so curious as to what it really was, and so I decided it was time to make the figgy pudding. And I used all of the dried fruits that I had in my cupboard. Ironically enough, I didn't have any figs with me, so I doubled the dates, added the cranberries, raisins. I'm using a Jamie Oliver recipe that calls for crystal ginger, and that sounds absolutely divine. So I just so happened to have that as well. I thought that was a stroke of luck. This recipe also called for some chopped rosemary, which I thought was a lovely addition. It's so light and so faint, you can hardly tell it's there, but I think it really does add something. Of course, if you're not a fan of the herb rosemary, you could omit that altogether. Another thing that the traditional figgy pudding or Christmas pudding has would be suet, which is animal organ fat. And Jamie Oliver suggested substituting that with cold shredded butter if you don't want to go with the traditional. So that's exactly what I did. I probably could get suet from my local butcher, but I just thought butter would taste all the better. Don't you agree? Back in the day though, it was very common to be cooking with animal fat, especially suet, which was really their fine fat. I think for us today, that would be butter. Butter would be our fine dessert fat that we like to use in our special delicious dessert cooking. But for them, that was definitely suet. Another great addition is the zest of a mandarin orange and adding the juice to that as well. I was shocked how easily this all came together and it really resembles just a Christmas fruitcake. And so I would love to know if this is one of your Christmas traditions or even my friends over there in England, do you guys make a family Christmas pudding? I would love to know about it. Let's talk about it in the comments below or even better yet at a recipe, your family's recipe. Folks 200 years ago were fans of food that would last for a long time. So this would keep for a while and supposedly they would make it ahead of time and they would have stirrup sundae where everyone would take a turn stirring the pudding. And I thought it was easier just to use my hands. That's what Jamie Oliver did in his recipe. Now I think this is what sets the figgy pudding apart from any recipe that I've ever made. I'm putting it inside one of my copper molds that I've had stored away and I'm topping it off with parchment paper. Then I'm going to line that with two sheets of foil and just as the Jamie Oliver recipe suggests, I'm making just a little handle with some kitchen twine that we're going to lower it into a pot that's halfway filled with boiling water and we're actually going to boil the pudding. So we're going to put this into one of my dutch oven pots, fill it halfway with boiling water, top it off with the lid and let this simmer and steam for four hours while we cook the rest of our Christmas dinner. In Victorian times they would have saved the best cuts for Christmas dinner and they might have been having some goose or duck but for us the best cuts of meat will be a filet mignon and some salmon filets. And we've truly saved the best for Christmas dinner. These amazing cuts of meat are actually from ButcherBox and what I love about ButcherBox is the quality that you can taste in their meat. Everything comes from trusted farmers and partners who meet ButcherBox's really high standards and that means that there's no added antibiotics or hormones that are ever added to their meat. We've actually raised our own chickens before and so knowing exactly where our meat is coming from and being able to trust its source is really important to us. So here in our ButcherBox order I have ordered things that I use on a regular but I've also added some special things like the salmon and some really nice steaks. I've got some organic hormone-free chicken breasts and some whole chickens for making chicken stock. Here are some sirloin steaks and beef ribeye steaks. They have a variety of high quality meats. All of their beef is 100% grass-fed. Their chicken is free-range and organic and their pork is crepe-free and their salmon and seafoods are responsibly and well-caught. The subscription is super flexible and convenient. You can customize each order every month to what you need. If you need to pause it for a month you can do that so it totally fits into your lifestyle and your budget. And do you want to know what the best part is? You're going to get free steaks for a whole year when you follow my link plus a discount of $20 off your first order when you use the code PINEYOURHOME20 or follow this handy QR code that's here on the screen. Thanks so much to ButcherBox. Now let's get back to making this amazing Christmas dinner. The next thing on our list is going to be making some moiselle. This Christmas drink should definitely be made ahead of time because you're going to want the aroma and fragrance of the oranges, the apple cider, and the cinnamon sticks, the clove, the allspice, all of these wonderful spices just wafting around your kitchen while you're making Christmas dinner. In college I sang in a magical, at a magical dinner, and one of the songs we sang was moiselle, moiselle all over the town. And it so turns out that this is actually a medieval type of a recipe. So it's very ancient and it was traditionally shared as a drink of goodwill and it's something you offer neighbors, guests as a blessing for the coming year. And this version is just really simple and I love that it's still lasting to this day. And I just have to mention that I am recording in a place where it's snowing and there's a snowplow outside so if you hear beeping it's the snowplow outside. Just know I'm sitting in a beautiful Christmas winter wonderland where there's snowplows plowing outside. Now it seems to be on any Christmas movie that I've ever watched where there is a humble Christmas dinner set there are some roasted carrots or maybe even some roasted turnips, boiled potatoes. So I thought I would make some spiced roasted carrots for tonight's dinner. These spiced carrots have a glaze that has butter and honey and brown sugar, some cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. And you boil that up and then you pour it right over your carrots. You roast them at 400 degrees for 30 minutes and reserve a couple tablespoons of the glaze to pour on the carrots just five minutes before they're done roasting. But for now I'm going to set these aside until we're ready to bake everything for dinner. And I don't think you could have a real Victorian or old-fashioned Christmas dinner without a real old-fashioned gingerbread cake. And I'm not talking about just little gingerbread men cookies. Back in the day they had, well, gingerbread. It resembled a large cake or bread that was loaded with ginger and spices and molasses. And what makes this cake really moist is pouring in hot steaming water or coffee right into the batter. Like most of these old-fashioned dessert recipes, they're not ultra sweet. So neither is this gingerbread cake, but it's perfect with a dollop of whipped cream on top. So we're going to put this in the oven and let it bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out fairly clean. You do like it kind of moist, almost a little fudgy I think. And in the meantime we're going to set the mood in the dining room. Put up lots of candles and just get it ready for a Victorian Christmas dinner. I so enjoy this part. I have to give my kids credit for helping me make some decorations and setting up this dining room. When I told them about my ideas about bringing the Christmas tree in from the living room and into the dining room, they thought I was very silly. But my 13-year-old son picked up that Christmas tree and hauled it into the dining room as gracefully as a 13-year-old boy can do with all its decorations and plopped it into the dining room for me. So thank you for that. And they also helped me make those paper chain decorations. I just love how festive it feels and so cozy. And our carrots are almost done. Just pouring the reserving glaze on them and then we'll get to the protein. Now normally I would be baking up a spiced spiral ham or even a roast for Christmas dinner. But I wanted to do something that just felt a little bit more simple but also felt really luxurious. And for me that would be some sort of seafood and some steaks. So tonight we're making some wild Alaskan salmon. We're just going to put some lemons and herbs. I'm using sage and rosemary. Topping off with some salt and pepper and some capers even and lemon. Folding it into a little parchment paper package. And we're putting that in the oven at 400 degrees for just about 20 minutes. And this is so so simple. They cook so quickly and they're so moist. And what I really loved about this whole menu is how simple it felt and how obtainable it felt. Instead of slaving in the kitchen for hours, this didn't feel that way. So I think I'm taking some notes for future Christmas dinners and future just feasts. It also felt really healthy. Simple food. This is the fancy part of the meal and it's the filet mignon. Definitely a treat. Not something that we have every day but these are farm fresh filet mignons from Butcher Box. And so I'm just being super simple with a seasoning with salt and pepper. We're going to put them in a piping hot oiled cast iron pan and get a nice brown crust on this. And I'm actually going to turn this over to my son who is killer at making steaks. And I'm going to work on the Yorkshire pudding. The Yorkshire pudding very much reminds me of a German pancake or a puff pancake. The same idea of oiling your pan and putting it into a hot oven at 400 degrees and a very eggy batter with eggs flour and milk. And that's it. So in England and back in the day Yorkshire pudding was served with meat and gravy. So that's pretty much what we're going to be using it for today as well. And I'll be making some gravy from the drippings of our steaks. This was also super simple and quick to make as well. So once you have whipped up the batter, I like to use the blender because it gets all the clump out of the flour. Then you're going to pour it into its piping hot pan dishes. And my oldest son who's over there on the steaks has got a nice crust on his steaks. And then he put some butter and whole garlic cloves and put the lid on to let them finish cooking off. I've been taking notes from some of my favorite Christmas stories. One of which is The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I also recently picked up a little compilation of Christmas stories by Laura Ingalls. One thing that I love about this time period is how much they do draw from nature. And they use what they have and they're very practical. They use ingredients that have long shelf life. They use what they have preserved throughout the summer season. And this fruit cake very much resembles that era and that practicality. So after four long hours, this cake has been steaming and I was oh so curious to see how it all turned out. I'm just curious about the texture and the color. And I did use a butter knife to kind of slide in the edges and curves of this mold. But if you were using a bowl, you wouldn't have to do that at all. It would pop out. It would pop right out. And so let's see what happens when we pop this out. You can see that a little bit of it did get caught. But you know what? It didn't really matter because once we mushed all of this together, I think it turned out just fine. It's so beautiful and I love how it worked with the mold. A lot of the old recipes actually put their pudding into a cloth and tied it off and then had it hanging in their pot simmering and steaming. So I do really prefer the mold look of this pudding. It's such a showstopper. If you want to create a really old-fashioned feeling Christmas, there's a few things that you can do. Bring in lots of natural elements. Go out and clip some boughs off of an evergreen tree and bring in lots of fruit, pomegranates, oranges, apples, pears, anything that you have. Layer them all on the table, all the food in different layers. Bring in lots of candles. I have a mix of beeswax candles and other different colors just to make it feel festive. Bring in ribbons and play some old-fashioned music on a record player. Turn the lights off and enjoy the ambience of the candlelight.